By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—A forum on the recent elections in the Palestinian Authority and Israel was broadcast last night (Tuesday, May 2) on UCSD television. Taped April 10, it featured presentations by UC Santa Barbara Professors Nancy Gallagher and Salim Yaqub, and UC San Diego Prof. Gershom Shafir.  From this viewer's perspective, Shafir and Yaqub were analytical and. for the most part, dispassionate, whereas Gallagher emerged as a Palestinian partisan.

Gallagher, who specializes in Middle Eastern history, said in choosing Hamas candidates to occupy 74 of 132 seats in the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian electorate was registering a protest vote in the Jan 25 elections.  The protest was not against the corruption of Fatah which previously had controlled their government, but against being "frustrated" and  "humiliated" by such policies as Israel having kept Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat a virtual prisoner in Ramallah until his death and the United States failing to provide more than verbal support to his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. 

The professor contended that the Palestinians knew such a vote "would put them in hot water," but they wanted to show the world that they would not simply be passive.

Gallagher said Hamas has indicated that it favors moderate policies with the appointment of "moderate" Ismael Haniyeh as prime minister. She said although Hamas is an Islamist organization, it made a point of running Christian candidates on its slate and has assured Christian Palestinians that it will not impose Muslim law on Christians.  Hamas also ran women candidates, and has stopped talking about creating an Islamic State, she said.

Concerning relations with Israel, Gallagher said that Hamas has offered a "long-term" truce to Israel. She said this would include an agreement not to launch suicide bombers against Israel in return for Israel agreeing to discontinue targeted assassinations of Palestinian leaders.

Furthermore, she said, Hamas has indicated its readiness to recognize Israel, in return for Israeli recognition of Palestine.  The question that first must be resolved, she said, is "which Israel?"—that of the pre-1967 borders, or that which is being planned by the Olmert government?  Whereas the European Union and the United States have called upon Hamas to abide by the Palestinian Authority's previous agreements with Israel, Gallagher contended that Israel has failed to do likewise. She said Israel registered 14 reservations from the U.S. proposed roadmap.

The professor said while it is true that there are some "blood curdling anti-Semitic clauses" in the Hamas charter, there are similar clauses in the platforms of right-wing Israeli political parties represented in the Knesset. She urged the world to judge Hamas on its deeds rather than its words, adding however that she thinks Hamas should change its charter.

Gallagher said that the goal of Hamas is to establish a contiguous Palestinian state, and that it is principally a nationalist organization, more than it is Islamist organization. She quoted South African Bishop Desmond Tutu as commenting during a tour  that the West Bank plan drawn up by Israel, with bypass roads for Israelis and road blocks for Palestinians is "worse than the Bantustans" of South Africa under its apartheid government. 

Shafir, a sociology professor, focused  on the dynamics of the March 28 Israeli election, which he described as shifting power from the center-right to the center-left.  In the 16th Knesset, the right-religious block held 69 of the 120 seats, whereas following the election it held only 50. Meanwhile, the center-left parties won 63 seats and if the 7 seats of the new Pensioner party are added to that, the center-left will have 70 of the 120 Knesset seats.  He said this will be the strongest center-left alignment since the times prior to Menahem Begin and his Likud victory of 1977.

The sociology professor said the election represented a repudiation of Likud's platform favoring a "Greater Israel" as well as of any expansionist dreams involving construction of new settlements.  Noting that Likud's representation in the Knesset fell from 40 to 12 seats, he said the best news for other parties is that  former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "promises not to quit"—the only quip during the forum that drew laughter.

Shafir credited former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who formed the new Kadima party five weeks before his coma-inducing  stroke for recognizing that Israelis want the personal security that comes form the border fence, while being willing to give up territory to the Palestinians to assure Israel continues to have a Jewish majority. 

For the time being, he said, there are two concurrent monologues occurring in the Middle East, with both the Israelis and Hamas talking to themselves, but not to each other.  Unless the two sides begin dialoguing, Israel on a unilateral basis probably will establish its borders by 2010.  One reason the Palestinians should seek to dialogue with the Israelis is that in a dialogue, Israelis may be willing to trade some of its territory near Gaza for the territories it plans to keep on the West Bank.  Otherwise, they simply will keep possession of both sets of land, according to Shafir.

Salim Yaqub, a UC-Santa Barbara professor whose specialty is U.S.-Arab relations, suggested that the Bush administration may be rethinking the way it pushed for elections in the Middle East as a result of the Hamas victory.

During the Cold War, the United States always made a point of saying that it did not have any problem with the people of the Communist nations, only their authoritarian governments, which ought to be changed by democratic processes, Yaqub said.  In the Middle East, however, the U.S. regularly supported authoritarian regimes, notwithstanding the fact that those regimes probably would be replaced if ever submitted to a popular election.

Yaqub said as President George W. Bush's administration developed the philosophical rationale for the ongoing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq—namely that the United States was attempting to spread democracy in that region—it looked favorably on Palestinian elections, particularly those following the death of Yasser Arafat which brought Mahmoud Abbas to power.  

But, said Yaqub, Palestinians were given democracy without sovereignty.  They were asked to pick leaders who would have no bearing on the ultimate borders of their state. Following the victory of Hamas in the last round of elections, the U.S. administration appears to be returning to its former view of the Middle East—that American interests lie with having reliable governments in the area, even if authoritarian, rather than with voters who favor Islamists.

The decision to cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority because of the Hamas victory is a reflection of that reversal, according to Yaqub.